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SENATE 



f Document 
I No. 46 



Who Bought Louisiana ? 



AN ADDRESS 

ON THE SERVICES OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 
IN CONNECTION WITH THE LOUISIANA 
PURCHASE, DELIVERED AT THE CLOSING 
EXERCISES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 
EXPOSITION, ST. LOUIS, MO. 
APRIL 30, 1913 



By 



WILLIAM M. THORNTON 



f 



PRESENTED BY MR. MARTIN 

MAY 27, 1913. — Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 
1913 







0. OF 0. 
jy^ 5 1913 



^ 



V 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 



"Peace is our passion; wrongs might drive us from it; hat we prefer trying 
every other just principle before ice would recur to tear." (Thomas Jeffer- 
son.) 



Human history is crowded with dramatic moments. Suddenly, 
without foreknowledge or forewarning, the world becomes a stage, 
and men and women play on it their tragic or comic parts. 

The midnight hour of April 13, 1803, was such a moment. The 
scene was Paris. The great figures of the drama were Thomas 
Jefferson, the American, and Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican. 
Kobert Livingston, the American minister, and Barbe-Marbois, the 
French secretary of the treasur3^ also appear as actors; and in the 
background we see dimly the forms of James Monroe and Talley- 
rand-Perigord, statesmen and diplomatists. The theme of the play 
is the conflict between autocracy and democracy. The title of the 
play might be " Who bought Louisiana ? " 

Let us picture to ourselves first the character of the great Ameri- 
can protagonist. Thomas Jefferson, at that time the most conspicu- 
ous figure in the western Republic, the central force of its politics, 
the dominating personality in its official life, was the son of a Vir- 
ginian farmer. The tides of settlement, which flowed first up the 
valleys of the four great Virginian rivers, had spread to their afflu- 
ents. In 1735 these tides had brought Peter Jefferson to a plantation 
on the Rivanna, one of the affluents of the James River. Here Peter 
patented land, and having wooed and won for himself a wife from 
the proud house of the Virginia Randolphs, he built a home in the 
wilderness and called it Shadwell in honor of his wife's English 
birthplace. A stalwart man, he lived here an energetic and useful 
life. He was chosen colonel of his county and vestryman of his 
church; represented his people in the Virginian House of Burgesses; 
and died at last in 1753, when his eldest son Thomas was but 10 
years old. His epitaph might have been written thus : " Even the 
red Indian trusted him." 

Thomas Jefferson was born and bred among the fine simplicities 
of that early Virginian country life. Heaven gave him neither pov- 
erty nor riches ; the precious inheritances of his youth were the lesson 
of his father's achievement and the example of his mother's excel- 
lence. His vigorous and healthy body was strengthened and ma- 
tured by the daily practice of wholesome outdoor sports. His flexible 
and fertile intelligence was trained under competent teachers in the 



4 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

energetic gymnastic of the great masters of ancient thought. His 
heart, formed bj^ nature to love and trust, was sweetened by the 
influences of a sister's pure affection and a friend's unstinted loyalty. 
Early orphaned, he learned in youth to bear the load of care and 
responsibility for his mother and his sisters. His means, ample for 
comfort, were unequal to ostentation or luxury, and the simple lives 
of his father's friends and neighbors, of his own guardians and 
masters, lent no countenance to vulgarity or vice. Under influences 
such as these he grew into his lusty manliood — a tall fellow of 6 feet 
2 inches, muscular and active. He had huge hands and feet, with 
something like a slouch in his gait. His hair was red, his face 
freckled, his cheek bones were high, his chin projected. As a youth 
he was hopelessly ugly. As a mature man his charm of manner and 
conversation made his companions forget his plainness. Advancing 
years gave to his expression that rare benignity which shines even 
from his portraits, and which lent a certain beautj^ to his Avise old 
age. 

It does not appear that Jefferson touched intimately the other 
circles of social life in the Old Dominion until, in 1760, he was en- 
tered as a student in William and Mary College. Here at Williams- 
burg, the capital city of the colony, he discovered new phases of 
human existence. His kinsmen on the mother's side — Randolphs and 
Byrds and Carys — took him by the hand and made him free of the 
proud society of the Virginian aristocrats. Already the fascination 
of his complex nature seemed to cast its spell upon his companions. 
The brilliant royal Gov. Fauquier welcomed the country lad of 18 
years to his familiar table. George Wythe, the greatest jurist of 
the colony, honored him with a notice which grew into lifelong 
friendship. One at least of his jDrofessors made him his chosen asso- 
ciate and profoundly influenced his intellectual life hj opening to 
him the novel regions of mathematics and natural philosophy and by 
stimulating in him that love for architectural studies, which has 
left on our national taste so deep an impress. For a little the sweet 
intoxication of this new life mounted to the brain of the country- 
bred boy. He threw himself into the current which swept so swiftly 
past him; kept his race horses, like other young Virginians of his 
order and his time; decked himself in gay attire and danced with 
the lowland beauties at the stately colonial balls; tuned his violin 
and took part in the musical festivities of Gov. Fauquier's semi- 
royal court. But in his veins flowed still old Peter Jefferson's sturdy 
blood ; in his heart lingered still loving reverence for the sweet pieties 
of his mother's life and the pure harmonies of his sister's spirit, 
while beneath the foundations of his intelligence lay the intuitive 
conviction that the simple democracy of his father and his father's 
friends was the relentless enemy of the moribund aristocracy of 
colonial Virginia, the ruthless foe of the insolence of privilege in 
all its forms. 

Jefferson tells us that at last the day came when he set himself 
down deliberately to ask, " Which shall it be — horseman, fox hunter, 
orator, or," to use his own noble phrase, " honest advocate of my 
country's rights " ? The question needed but to be asked ; the answer 
lay in his priceless inheritance of sanity and virtue. Loyalty to his 
father's simple ideals of democracy had come to him as a birth- 
right. Faith in the prevalent virtue and wisdom of the unspoiled 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 5 

masses of his fellow countrymen had been reanimated by his new 
experiences. Upon these abutments Thomas Jefferson reared the 
stately arch of his great public life. 

The year 1T62 found Jefferson once more in his Albemarle home. 
He had been graduated from college, and under the guidance of 
Chancellor Wythe was pursuing with ardent industry those his- 
torical and legal studies which armed him for his warfare against 
British tyranny. He gave to this energetic training five full years. 
It was not until April, 1767, that he applied for admission to prac- 
tice; but he then took rank at once with the most erudite and suc- 
cessful lawyers of the colony. His marriage in 1772 to a beautiful 
and affectionate woman filled out the circle of those influences which 
molded his genius and tempered the metal of his soul. Domestic 
life in his new home at Monticello, now rising with sweet informal 
loveliness upon the summit of the little mountain which overlooked 
his birthplace at Shadwell, revealed for him its ideal charm. The 
adoring wife filled the void left by the death of the beloved sister. 
Home was thenceforward a sacred asylum, whither Jefferson always 
yearned to bring his wearied body and his wounded spirit for com- 
fort and for rest. 

The 10 years following this marriage were the years of Jefferson's 
public life, which were richest in originality and in power. That 
noble series of state papers, which culminated in the immortal 
Declaration or Independence, was the fruit of the first half of this 
period. Virginia claimed the second half. In this period Jefferson 
remodeled the life of his native State, transforming it from a 
medieval colony to a modern Commonwealth. The system of en- 
tailed estates was destroyed; the laws of primogeniture were 
abolished; religious freedom was established as part of the organic 
law; education by the State was made a fundamental article of the 
Democratic faith ; and the civilized world was taught how to human- 
ize penal codes, inherited from medieval ignorance and stained with 
medieval cruelty. Not Virginia only, but every American Common- 
wealth owes to the initiative of Thomas Jefferson these cardinal 
blessings of American modern life. That he did not anticipate and 
better Abraham Lincoln; that he did not by the gradual emancipa- 
tion of the negro slaves avert from the Nation he loved so wisely 
and so well the tragic miseries of a bloody civil war and the cruel 
degradations of an unrestricted suffrage, was the fault not of Jef- 
ferson's prophetic insight, but of the lack of vision of the Virginians 
of his day. 

The close of this ]3eriod in Jefferson's life was marked by the 
death of his beloved wife. Of their seven children, two only sur- 
vived the years of infancy. Moved by their common sorrow, Jeffer- 
son promised his wife in 1776 not to leave Virginia while her 
strength was so small. Ten years of what he described later as 
" unchecquered happiness " came in 1782 to its pathetic end. Over 
the deathbed of the woman he loved so dearly he vowed that her 
<;h:ildren should have no second mother, and this supreme loss fell 
on him with no future solace to break its terriffic force. In after 
years his older daughter recorded the father's despairing grief, 
unconsciously betrayed, when by stealth she visited his room and 
witnessed the violence of his emotion. We are also told how she 
became for long weeks his constant companion in melancholy rambles 



6 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

through the quiet woods and " the solitary witness to many a burst 
of grief, the remembrance of which consecrated the scenes beyond 
the power of time to obliterate."" If Thomas Jefferson's daughters 
adored him, if his friends gave him an unchanging affection, if his 
political followers cherished for him an invincible loyalty, it was 
because his own heart had learned in pity and in sorrow the lessons 
of infinite love and perfect trust. 

llecalled at last to the service of his country, Jefferson sailed for 
Europe in July, 1784. He took with him the older daughter, 
Martha; Polly, the younger, following later, formed that tender 
intimacy with Abigail Adams, which led in the end to the beautiful 
reconciliation between two of the great builders of the American 
Republic. The five years spent in Paris permitted Jefferson to 
witness the gathering storm of the French Revolution and to know 
many of the great actors in that frightful tragedy. He saw there 
the ending of an epoch which demonstrated forever the impotence 
of privilege to serve the general welfare of mankind. The claim 
that his political dogmas were drawn from the men who shared in 
this great revolt is no longer deemed worthy of credence. Jefferson 
came to France as a master, not as a disciple. The leaders of 
political thought in Paris sat at his feet. The woes of France might 
have been mitigated if these men could have translated into practice 
the lessons of moderation taught by him. Unhappily the frenzy of 
the populace soon passed bej^ond their control and the Reign of Terror 
was the frightful sequel. Jefferson had then returned to America 
and held a seat in Washington's Cabinet. The intimate and sympa- 
thetic knowledge of the French character gained from his five years' 
residence in Paris gave him a calmer patience with the excesses of 
the Revolution and added force to his counsels as Secretary of State. 
It may also be true that his later success in his dealings with the 
First Consul was due in part to such knowledge, guiding an in- 
stinctive sagacity above the reach of rules. 

When Jefferson left Paris, September 26, 1789, he purposed to pay 
only a brief visit to his home and to return at once to Europe. This 
purpose he never realized. Even before he landed at Norfolk the 
newspapers had published his appointment as Washington's Secre- 
tary of State, and on March 21, 1790, he reached New York to enter 
at once upon the discharge of his new duties. The storj^^ of Hamil- 
ton's antagonism, of Jefferson's recoil, of the birth of a new party 
in American politics, of the swift growth and the triumphant vindi- 
cation of its right to live, of Jefferson's retirement to the serene 
asylum of his mountain home, of the vice presidency and its four 
years of wise and capable organization, of the final debacle of feder- 
alism — all this is a twicetold tale and must not detain us. We who 
inherit the usufruct of the genius of Jefferson and Hamilton do well 
to forget their animosities^ Let us remember only that both were 
great and both were good ; that they gave to the service of the young 
Republic a loyal devotion; and that in AVashington they had a friend 
and a leader' who, loving both, knew how to govern both and use 
their genius for the common good. Nor let the Jeffersonian Demo- 
crat ever forget that at the" supreme moment it was Alexander 
Hamilton who gave to Thomas Jefferson his effectual, albeit grudg- 
ing support, made him the third President of the United States, and 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 7 

cast down once for all from the seats of the mighty the malign figure 
of Aaron Burr. 

As we turn oiir glance backward over this short story w'e may see 
the man to whose hands heaven had committed the destinies of 
America. From Margaret Bayard's facile pen we have a picture of 
his outer man, truer than any save a woman would be likely to draw. 
Born of a Federalist famil^y of great distinction, she came from the 
very camp of Jefferson's enemies. Yet it is thus that out of personal 
and abundant knowledge she sketches the philosopher of Monticello : 

If Mr. Jefferson's dress was plain, unstudied, and sometimes old-fashioned in 
its form, it was always of tlie finest inaterials. In bis personal habits he was 
always fnstidionsly neat; and if in his manner he was simple, affable, and 
unceremonious, it was not because he was ignorant of but because he despised 
the conventional and artificial usages of courts and fashionable life. His 
external appearance had no pretension to elegance, but was neither coarse nor 
awkward, and his greatest personal attraction was a countenance beaming with 
benevolence and intelligence. 

So much for the outside of Thomas Jefferson. Within was found 
a temper of rare benignity and sweetness ; a serene trust in that over- 
ruling power which makes for righteousness in human history; a 
spirit tenderly sensitive to praise and blame, but armed against 
injustice and calumny with a matchless fortitude and a wondrous 
patience; a stable confidence in the good will and good sense of his 
fellow countr5anen; and such valiant hatred for every form of 
tyranny over the human spirit as no man had show^ed before his day 
and no man since has shown. 

Too manj^ of Jefferson's biographers have lacked the clairvoyance 
of sympathy, and his character and career have been to them full of 
enigmas. The tall, raw-boned Virginian farmer who smashed all 
the canons of Washington's etiquette seemed a being of another mold 
from the serene philosopher of Monticello. who built for himself in 
the wilderness a home graced with the beauties of architecture and 
the refinements of culture. The fiery young reformer who destroyed 
the privileges of the Virginian gentry and demolished the authority 
of the established church could not have in his veins the blood of the 
Randolphs and the Carys. Simple in manner and address, rude 
sometimes in attire, scornful of ceremonial dignity and social ritual, 
he hid beneath this assumed plainness a temper of extraordinary 
subtlety and matchless finesse in dealing with his fellow men. Care- 
less of dignities and indifferent to office and to wealth, he was greedy 
of power and ambitious to rule. With the soul of the idealist and 
the mind of the philosopher he combined the business man's contempt 
for the fetters of a formal logic. The dicta of theory with him 
yielded ultimately to the data of fact. He reconciled his philosophy 
to realities and. if need be. was capable of holding on to the realities 
and coolly tossing the philosophy overboard. Such in 1801 was 
Thomas jeft'erson. President of the United States of America, the 
man appointed by Heaven to meet and master the superhuman 
genius of the greatest despot of the modern time. 

If the character of Jefferson is an enigma to his biographers, the 
character of Xapoleon is the riddle of the ages. He was a monster of 
selfishness; yet he was adored by a million soldiers, who, without a 
murmur, sacrificed life itself for his sake. He was fickle as the 
winds; yet his ministers and his marshals were his devoted friends, 



8 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

and no woman who came under the magnetic power of his attraction 
could ever resist the fascination of his address. He was an alien 
to France and was false to every duty to his adopted country; yet 
while he lived he was the idol of the French people, and he is to-day 
the heroic figure in their national history. His martial genius was so 
astounding that military critics have ascribed to him some myste- 
rious power through which his adversaries were forced to act not as 
free agents but as subjects to his volitional control. In diplomacy, 
as in war, truth and falsehood were to him mere forms of expression, 
of which he chose freely the more useful. Faithful to no being save 
himself and to no cause save personal ambition, he Avas alike impas- 
sive to his foes and indifferent to his friends. As he indulged no 
enmities, so he countenanced no affections save such as exalted his 
own greatness and his own glory. We are now to follow the conflict 
between the autocracy of Napoleon and the democracy of Jefferson 
as it unrolls before us its story in five great historic acts. 

First Act. — The scene is Madrid. 

THE SECRET TREATY OE SAN ILDEFONSO. 

The inauguration day of Thomas Jefferson as President, March 4. 
1801, saw the United States at apparent peace with all the world. 
Yet more than five months before a secret treaty negotiated between 
Napoleon and the Spanish King had set up conditions perilous to the 
life of the young Republic. The placid optimism of the new Presi- 
dent had his unsuspecting ignorance for its sole foundation. 

The United States of 1801 possessed only a single free frontier. 
Her northern boundary was everywhere open to the British arms. 
Her western border was the Mississippi, beyond which stretched the 
vast dominions of Spain. Her southern limit was the thirty-first 
parallel of latitude, between which and the Gulf of Mexico lay the 
two Floridas, East and West, also dependencies of Spain. Only her 
Atlantic coast line gave her unhampered access to the markets of the 
world. Between this and the fertile valley of the Mississippi lay the 
barriers of the Alleghany and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Across 
them no canal was possible, and the era of railways was still far off. 
All this fertile interior with its manifest possibilities of production 
was commercially and industrially bottled up. Three Spanish cities. 
New Orleans and Mobile and Pensacola, closed every waterway 
which could feed the commerce of this vast section of the Union. 
It is true that the Spanish treaty of 1795 had opened the Mississippi 
to our commerce, and for the limited period of three years granted 
our shippers the right of deposit for their freight at New Orleans 
pending transshipment. But the three years had expired, the right 
was liable at any moment to be withdrawn, and still the Govern- 
ment at Washington gave no sign of activity. 

By May 26 rumors of the existence of the secret treaty and of its 
hostile tenor began to reach Jefferson's ears. Livingston had already 
been nominated as minister to France, but it was not until November 
11 that he reached Paris. Definite information then became avail- 
able, and Livingston at once wrote back to Washington confirmation 
of the dangerous rumors,. About the same time Rufus King sent 
from London full details of the treaty. France was to replace Spain 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 9 

as the dominant power at New Orleans and along the western bank 
of the Mississippi. Jefferson was at last stirred to action; he knew 
too well that, if the transfer' were made, Napoleon would prove a 
neighbor hostile to the peace and dangerous to the life of the Ameri- 
can Eepublic. 

The secret treaty, details of which were now at last revealed, was 
signed October 1, 1800, and had existed 18 months before Jefferson 
was apprised of its contents. The Queen of Spain belonged to a 
type of royal ladies not unknoAvn to historians. Beautiful, voluptu- 
ous, and married to a dull husband, she found compensation for the 
magnitude of the King's virtues in the multiplicit}' of her own 
lovers. It was through one of these favorites that Napoleon's agent 
approached Queen Luisa, secured her influence with Charles IV, and 
thus effected the retrocession of the Louisiana Territory to France. 
The compensation offered by Napoleon and eagerly accepted by 
Charles and Luisa was a tiny Italian Kingdom for their son-in-law. 
the Duke of Parma. The territory surrendered included the city of 
Nevr Orleans, on the left or eastern bank of the Mississippi, and the 
entire area of the right bank, extending from the Gulf of Mexico 
northward to the Lake of the Woods and from the river westAvard to 
4,he Rocky Mountains and Eio Bravo. The area equaled 10 entire 
Italies. LTnder the influence of Talleyrand, then his minister of 
foreign affairs, Napoleon had determined to build up for France a 
great colonial empire in America. The retrocession of Louisiana 
by the treaty of San Ildefonso was the first gigantic step toAvard 
the realization of his statesmanlike and magnificent design. The 
step had been taken, the treatv had been signed, and the legions of 
France were preparing for the occupation of New Orleans. The 
American President sat quietly in Washington — at first in optimistic 
ignorance and to the last in optimistic helplessness. 

NoAv, at least, Jefferson Avas thoroughly awake. His flexible and 
fertile intelligence set itself to work on the problem of securing for 
the United States a commercial outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. For. 
its solution he looked to war only as a last resort. 

" Peace is our passion," he wrote at a later date to an English cor- 
respondent; "wrongs might drive. us from it: but Ave prefer trying 
every other just principle before we would recur to Avar." 

As the abutments of his domestic statesmanship were his faith in 
democracy and his trust in the people, so his foreign statesmanship 
rested always on two supports — political isolation and international 
peace. His tAvo great commandments for America Avere to avoid 
entangling alliances and to abstain from aggressions. These he 
never forgot, following them' with a philosophic faith and a philo- 
sophic calm almost incredible. As we watch his cautious maneuA^ers 
in the face of impending disaster and call to mind the triumphant 
end, we can only cry Avith the Psalmist. •' The Lord preser\^eth the 
simple." 

Jefferson's first step Avas to spur Livingston. Between the Presi- 
dent and his minister to France a friendship of fiv^e and twenty years 
existed. They had served together on the committee appointed to 
draft the Declaration of Independence and ever since 1776 their rela- 
tions had been confidential and cordial. Sprung from a NeAv York 



10 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

family of distinction and power, Livingston had done good service 
to his State and to the Union. Jefferson described him as an '' able 
and honorable man " ; but he Avas more than this, for he possessed 
insight as well as sagacit}^ His generous backing of the then un- 
known inventor of the steamboat attests his quality. Robert Fulton 
owed to Robert Livingston his immortality. Unfortunately, Liv- 
ingston at the time of the Louisiana Purchase was nearly 60 years 
old and was exceedingly deaf — so deaf that he had to transact all 
business by writing. To enlarge the instructions given to Livingston 
at the outset of his mission, Jefferson availed himself of the services of 
another friend. This was Dupont de Nemours, a French eccmomist 
and statesman, who had been driven from his native country during 
the Terror and had taken refuge in America. Dupont was on the j^oint 
of returning to France, and Jefferson not only made him the bearer 
of an open letter to Livingstoji, but acquainted him fully with his 
views and engaged his personal support in the presentation of the 
American case to the First Consul and his ministers. By this letter 
and by Dupont's personal communications Jefferson expected to make 
Livingston an active participant in his policy. 

The open letter sent to Livingston by the hand of Dupont is char- 
acteristic of Jefferson, and should be read with minute care by every 
student of his policy. It has been called the letter of an alarmist 
and construed as proof of Jefferson's panic fear. Nothing could be 
further from the truth. That wise old schemer, seated in his cabinet 
in Washington, did write the letter of an alarmist; but its purpose 
was to alarm Livingston, to alarm Talleyrand, if possible to alarm 
Napoleon. He presents as impending the tw^o things furthest from 
his real intent — furthest from his true desire. The one was close 
alliance with Great Britain; the other Avas aggressive movement on 
the American dominions of Spain, Listen to a few of his ingenious 
sentences : 

The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence 
which is to restrain her forever within her low-\Yater mark. It seals the nnion 
of two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the 
ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and 
nation. 

The change of friends which will be rendered necessary if France changes 
her position embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the first war of 
Europe. The first cannon shot will be the signal for tearing up any settlement 
France may hare made and for holding the two continents of America in 
sequestration for the conuiKm purposes of the united British and American 
nations. 

If anything could reconcile the retrocession of Louisiana to our interests it 
would be the ceding to us of the island of New Orleans and the Floridas. This 
would at any rate relieve us from the necessity of taking immediate measures 
for countervailing the French occupation of Louisiana. 

Time does not permit more extended quotations. Jefferson's pur- 
pose was to intimidate Napoleon by threats of an alliance between 
the United States and Great Britain, the certain effect of which 
would be to snatch Louisiana from his grasp at the outbreak of war 
in Europe. Livingston doubtless gave loyal support to the policy 
of his chief. But Napoleon was not a man easy to scare. The threats 
of a government which, from his point of view, had no fleet, no stand- 
ing army, and not even an organized militia, probably seemed to 
him and to his marshals a delicious farce. The preparations for the 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? ^ 11 

investment of Louisiana Avent steadily on, and eight months later all 
that Livingston could write was, " Do not absolutely despair." 

Second Act. — The scene is New Orleans. 

THE AVITHDRAWAL OF THE KIGHT OF DEPOSIT. 

Just six months after the date of Jefferson's letter to Livingston 
the Spanish intendant at New Orleans, Morales, withdrew the right 
of deposit. He took this action without specific instructions from 
Madrid, and against the protest of Salcedo, the governor. The in- 
tendant had direct charge of the revenues of the colony and was 
responsible not to the governor but to the treasury in Madrid. 
Constant remonstrances against deficits in the revenues came to him 
and he Avas instructed to seek for some remedy. Claiming that the 
right of deposit was used to cover smuggling, he acted on his own 
responsibility, and on October 16, 1802, withdrew the right, which. 
under the treaty, had formally expired in 1798 and had never been 
formally renewed. A measure so ruinous to the commerce of the 
Mississippi Valley was met with indignant protest. Men like Clai- 
borne, then goA^ernor of the Territory of Mississippi, were anxious to 
occujDy New Orleans and the other Gulf ports by force of arms and 
defy the Spanish power. Acts of war, howcA^er, Avere things which 
Jefferson could countenance only in the last extremity, " peace being 
indeed the most important of all things for us," as he said, " except 
preserving an erect and independent attitude." Never changing his 
policy, ncA'er losing his head, the old philosopher set himself once 
more to find an exit from his ncAV perplexities by the diplomatic arts 
of peace. 

The session of Congress was impending when late in November, 
1802, the news of Morales's action reached Washington. Jefferson 
quieted the first turbulence of excitement by postponing all ex- 
pression until the da}^ came for his annual message. ^Vlien this docu- 
ment Avas read to Congress on December 15 the foUoAving paragraph 
was the only allusion to the burning question of the hour : 

The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisiana to France, which took place 
in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make a change in the 
aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless have just weight in any 
deliberation of the legislature connected with the subject. 

These cautious and temperate phrases Avere a complete checkmate 
to both hot-headed Republicans and hostile Federalists. Surely, 
they thought, the wily old President must have something up his 
sleeA^e to be so calm. Threats of war Avere ^quieted ; symptoms of 
party disintegration disappeared : time was gained. One month later 
Jefferson was ready for his second step. 

This came January 11, when Gen. Smith, of Maryland, carried 
the House into secret executive session and moved the special ap- 
propriation of $2,000,000— 

to defray any expenses which may be incurred in relation to the intercourse 
between the United States and foreign nations. 

The motion was referred to a committee, was forthwith returned 
Avith a f aA^orable report, and was passed. Jefferson at once sent to the 
Senate the nomination of James Monroe as minister extraordinary 



12 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

to France and Spain, and this nomination was promptly confirmed. 
The President was thus enabled to intrust to one of his closest per- 
sonal friends the conduct of the delicate negotiations which were to 
be undertaken with the First Consul. He could also furnish his 
envoy with ample funds to initiate some peaceable adjustment of the 
conflicting interests of France and America. 

Meanwhile, through the Spanish minister in Washington, a suc- 
cessful appeal had been made to Madrid. The minister had not 
only sent a sharp rebuke to Morales but had urged strongly on the 
Spanish King the wisdom of restoring the right of deposit. The 
Marquis Yrujo was personally friendly to Jefferson and was also 
married to an American wife. His interests were thus warmly en- 
listed on the side of the United States. In Madrid also Godoy had 
i-eturned to power as prime minister, frankly hostile to Napoleon and 
frankly friendly to America. The two ministers found it easy to win 
the consent of Charles IV to the policy they had at heart. The 
desired order was promised on February 28, 1803; was issued on 
March 1, and on April 20 news was received in Washington that 
the right of deposit was restored. The agents of the First Consul 
had opposed the measure secretly, but in vain. Jefferson's peace 
policy was beginning to have its perfect work. Give the old phi- 
losopher time and perhaps after all he could win the game he played 
so blandly. 

Third Act. — The s<:ene is Haiti. 

REVOLT AND RUIN OF TOUSSAINT. 

We turn now to the series of events which for two and a half years 
delayed Napoleon's plans for establishing a vast colonial empire in 
America, which finally defeated this plan, and which rendered pos- 
sible Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana. 

Midway in the chain of the Antilles lies the beautiful island of 
Haiti. At the outbreak of the French Revolution nearly two-thirds 
of the foreign commerce of France centered in this tiny area. The 
climate was perfect, the fertility hifinite, the range of production 
covered all the plants both of the Tropics and of the Temperate Zones. 
Of its 600,000 inhabitants 600,000 were negro slaves, the rest were 
about equally divided between the French Creoles of pure white blood 
and the mulattoes. The taint of negro blood excluded the latter 
from political power and relegated them to a lower social caste. It 
did not, however, limit their property rights, which covered one- 
third the lands and one-fourth the personalty of the island. In the 
upheaval of the French Revolution these mulattoes pressed their 
claims for political and social rights. The national assembly sup- 
ported them and the mulattoes became republicans. By an inevitable 
reaction the Creoles became royalists and both sides took up arms. 
Then suddenly, on an August night in 1791, the 500,000 slaves and 
the 50.000 mulattoes made common cause and turned their united 
forces against the 50,000 Creoles. The island was swept- with fire 
and drenched in blood. The civilized world shuddered at the spec- 
tacle ; at rapes and massacres, ferocious cruelties, ruthless destruction. 

Presently from this welter of indecency and disorder a masterful 
figure appeared — a negro, grandson of a Dahomey chieftain. His 
name was Toussaint; he gave himself the surname of Louverture, 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 13 

the gap maker, because everywhere he burst asunder the ranks of 
his enemies. Sober, vigorous, valorous, untiring, ferocious, treacher- 
ous, selfish, he made himself the undisputed leader of his own race, 
and united with the Spaniards to restore order in Haiti. In 1794 
the French Eepublic proclaimed the abolition of slavery in the 
island and sent a Government commission to restore order. Tous- 
saint, attracted by the bribe of freedom, deserted the Spaniards for 
the French. He was received into their service, and at the head of a 
force of 4,000 men swept the Spaniards out of Haiti. In 1795 the 
national assembly made him brigadier general; in ,1797 they pro- 
moted him general in chief and gave him military command over the 
whole colony. He promptly drove out the British force which had 
attempted to establish a hold upon Haiti and speedily crushed all 
opposition in the French section of the island. By 1800 he had 
thrown off his allegiance to the French Government and assumed 
for himself both civil and military control; and one year later he 
made himself master of the Spanish section of the island also. In 
May, 1801, he gave Haiti a constitution, proclaimed himself gov- 
ernor, for life, and assumed the right to appoint his own successor. 
In words as well as in acts he set Napoleon at defiance, calling him- 
self the Bonaparte of the Antilles. Thus, the fierce African chal- 
lenged destruction at the hands of the fiercer Corsican. 

Napoleon was swift to conceive and no less swift to execute. He 
needed Haiti for a depot of supplies in his great venture of American 
colonial expansion. He determined to take it, to restore the blacks 
to slavery, and to crush this " gilded African," who had dared ape 
his own autocratic methods and rival his own defiant career. 

He selected as captain general his brother in law, Leclerc, husband 
to the beautiful Pauline Bonaparte, and, next to Napoleon himself, 
the ablest member of the Bonaparte family. With 10,000 picked 
men, perfectly officered and equipped and provisioned. Gen. Leclerc 
sailed from Brest on November 22, 1801. By the end of January 
the French ships lay beneath the mountain peaks • of Haiti. On 
February 5, 1802, Leclerc landed his troops at Le Cap. The negroes 
had withdrawn their forces and the once beautiful city was a de- 
serted mass of smoking ruins. Toussaint, with hjs little army, held 
out against the French for nearly three months. One by one his 
generals betrayed and deserted him until he was left alone with a 
mere handful of men. If he had retired to the mountains he might 
have maintained indefinitely a successful guerilla warfare. But at 
last he was deluded by the promises of Napoleon and the overtures 
of Leclerc. He trusted himself to the honor of the French, and 
that was the end of Toussaint. Smuggled on shipboard, landed at 
Brest, hurried to a fortress in the Jura Mountains, he lay for months 
in his ice-bound dungeon, and on the morning of April 7, 1803, 
Toussaint was found dead in his prison cell. 

Meanwhile the half million ex-slaves of Haiti had learned Na- 
poleon's purpose to enslave them again. They fled for refuge to the 
fastnesses of the mountains and defied Leclerc and his soldiers. In 
September, 1802, yellow fever broke out in the French camps. Pres- 
ently Leclerc wrote Napoleon that of 28,000 men furnished to him 
he had left only 4,000 effectives. One month later Leclerc followed, 
his army to the grave, and the Paris journals of January 7, 1803, 
announced the practical destruction of the entire force and the col- 



14 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

laj^se of the French expedition for the reduction of Haiti. The same 
terrible malady which wrecked the French engineers in Panama 
annihilated the French soldiers in Haiti. Napoleon's splendid plan 
for a vast French colonial empire in America was brought to ruin 
by " Yellow Jack," not by Toussaint. 

Fourth Act. — The scene is Paris. 

THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY. 

Jefferson's letters express so plainly his purposes in adding Monroe 
to his dijDlomatic corps that the prevalent misconceptions of those 
purposes seem to show a lack of candor in the reader rather than a 
lack of clearness in the writer. His purpose was threefold : 

First. To commit the direction of these negotiations to a person 
of distinguished competence, fully apprised by both oral and written 
communications of his intentions, and thus enabled to act independ- 
ently in such an emergency as might make it impossible to await 
intelligence from Washington. 

Second. To accredit this person to the courts of both France and 
Spain, so that whether valid title to the territory acquired must be 
sought in Paris or Madrid, the necessary negotiations might be 
promptly concluded. 

Third. To provide for possible failure in both Paris and Madrid 
by sending an envoy who could be trusted, should it become necessary, 
to sound the purposes of the British (government and ascertain in 
London the possibilities of an alliance, offensive and defensive, be- 
tween England and America against the aggressive policy of 
Napoleon. 

To meet all conditions the best man Jefferson could find was James 
Monroe. In 1780, after four years of service in the Continental 
armies, he began under Jefferson's personal guidance the study of 
law. This relation of master and disciple became the foundation of 
a lifelong friendship. Monroe's subsequent career had been in every 
way honorable to him. An earlier mission of two years to Paris, 
ineffectual in results, had nevertheless given him some personal 
knowledge of the French. He had none of the genius of Jefferson, 
but he possessed admirable qualifications for the task now confided 
to him — the perfect confidence of his chief, perfect sympathy with 
his political ideals, a mind both clear and robust, the habit of patient 
scrutiny in the study of problems, and resolute firmness in the 
maintenance of his conclusions. 

Monroe sailed from America on March 8, 1803; landed in France 
on April 10, and shortly after midday on April 12 descended at the 
door of his hotel in Paris. The next day was passed by the two 
ministers together in examining papers and discussing plans. Liv- 
ingston thus learned from Monroe the President's expectations and 
at the same time received his latest written instructions. As far as 
they concerned the diplomatic situation in the European capitals 
the following extract gives their general tenor : 

We must know at once whether we can acquire New Orleans or not. We are 
satisfied nothing else will secure us against war at no distant period. For this 
purpose it was necessary that the negotiators should be fully possessed of every 
idea we have on the subject, so as to meet the propositions of the opposite party 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 15 

iu wbiitever form they mjiy be offei'ed ;ind give tliein a sliap*^ admissible by us, 
witliont beiug obliged to await new instructions lienoe. 

With this view we have joined Mr. INIonroe to yourself. The oftleial and 
verbal communications to you by ilr. aionroe will be so full and minute that I 
need not trouble you with an inolticia] repetition of them. The future destinies 
of our country hang on the event of this negotiation, and I am sure they could 
not be placed in more able or more zealous hands. On our parts we shall be 
satisfied that what j'ou do not effect can not be effected. 

Men who desire to belittle Jefferson are fond of describing him 
as a '' tall, raw boned Virginia farmer," and of hinting, rather than 
itsserting, a lack of straightforwardness in his methods. The writer 
has known many Virginia farmers and is glad to bear testimony 
that Jefferson, not in appearance onl}^, but in the infinite candor and 
courtes}^ shown in this letter to Livingston, was not unworthy of a 
place in their class. 

Men familiar with Jeffersonian chronology will not easily forget 
that April 13 was Jefferson's birthday. On the afternoon of that 
day Livingston was entertaining Monroe with other friends in his 
apartments in Paris. Even to-day many old houses in the French 
capital open on walled-in gardens, beautiful with spreading trees 
and fragrant shrubberies. On this afternoon, as the host looked out 
through the window, he saw his friend Marbois Avalking in the 
garden of the house. He called him in and made him sit down to 
coffee with his other guests. Before Marbois left he managed to 
explain to the deaf old diplomatist that, after the guests separated, 
Livingston must come to Marbois's home. On this night in Paris, 
then. Napoleon, through Marbois, made his definite offer of Loui- 
siana to Jefferson, through Livingston. The price named, after 
some ineffectual haggling, was 80,000,000 francs— 60,000,000 for 
Napoleon, 20,000,000 to cover the American spoliation claims against 
France. At midnight Livingston left Marbois without having 
accepted the offer, saying that he must confer further with Monroe. 
But as he at once wrote home to Jefferson of his success, it is plain 
that, in spite of apparent reluctance, he was already assured of 
Monroe's support and was already determined upon the Louisiana 
purchase. No one will begrudge Livingston his triumph, and it is 
pleasant to remember that Jefferson frankly credited him with his 
success. " Your treaty," he wrote him, " obtained nearly a general 
approbation," and told him how the Senate had approved it by a 
vote of 24 to 7, and how the House of Kepresentatives had, hj a vote 
of 89 to 23, made provision for its execution. 

The storey of the events which led up to Napoleon's tender shows 
that Livingston's diplomatic labors had little to do with the final 
outcome. The American minister had proved himself assiduous, 
patient, energetic, untiring. No delays could outweary him, no 
rebuffs dishearten him. When he complained that his Government 
would think him " a very indolent negotiator " Talleyrand promised 
him a written certificate to the effect that he was " the most importu- 
nate Talleyrand had ever met with." But despite all his labors the 
results were insignificant. Constantly he offered to buy the eastern 
bank of the Mississippi — New Orleans and the Floridas — never dis- 
covering that what he offered to buy Napoleon did not have to sell. 
The real reasons of the First Consul's abrupt change of policy were 
the tragic collapse of his movement on Haiti, the military necessity 
of some adequate base of supplies for his colonial adventure, the 



16 WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 

closely impendijig breach of the peace with England, and the conse- 
quent stringent demand upon his war chest. He had something to 
sell, valueless to him, but to his customer of priceless value. He 
demanded not all it was worth but all he could get. It had cost him 
nothing but a promise, and the proceeds would be pure gain. His 
exultant words were: 

Sixty millions for au occupation that will not perhaps last a day, ' 

The quickness of the transaction, the magnitude of the profit, 
seemed to cancel his Haitien losses and at the same time to eliminate 
a possible adversary from his future fields of battle. 

Monroe entered the vineyard at the eleventh hour, after Living- 
ston had borne the burden and heat of the dsij. Yet the American 
people made his wages not only equal to Livingston's but gi-eater. 
He returned home to be again governor of Virginia, Secretary of 
State and Secretary of War in Madison's Cabinet, and for two terms 
President of the United States. His successful conduct of the nego- 
tiations for the Louisiana purchase contributed to his exaltation, 
while Livingston in the tangled controversies over the French spolia- 
tion claims lost the glory acquired from the purchase and came out 
of the affair with reputation tarnished and temper embittered. 
Many careful students of this epoch in American history have hesi- 
tated to ascribe to Monroe any conspicuous or decisive share in the 
purchase. They thus set themselves in opposition to the practical 
judgment of Monroe's contemporaries. On this point it is difficult 
to believe that contemporary judgment was not right. On Living- 
ston's own testimony Talleyrand made him an offer on April 11, 
before Monroe reached Paris, and in response to this offer of the 
whole of Louisiana the American minister's highest bid was 20,- 
000,000 francs, out of which the spoliation claims were to be paid. 
Two days later, after extended conference with Monroe, Livingston 
received from Marbois the same offer and did not refuse to pay 
80,000,000 francs, allowing 20,000,000 francs for the spoliation claims 
alone. What had happened in the interval? 

One thing had happened, and only one. James Monroe had reached 
Paris in full possession of Jefferson's ideas and with ample authority 
to meet the propositions of the opposite party in ivhatever form they 
TThight he offered. It is plain that Talleyrand was a mere interloper : 
Marbois was the French minister of finance, and Marbois only had 
been authorized by Napoleon to effect the sale. Yet Marbois came 
to Livingston only after a full day had been allowed for conference 
between the two American ministers. He had received liis instruc- 
tions from Napoleon at daybreak on April 11 and had been ordered 
to carry them into effect the same day. He postponed action until 
midnight of April 13. Such delays are not accidents. Marbois 
waited with a purpose. That purpose was to insure for Livingston 
the support and counsels of Monroe. The Louisiana Purchase was 
made through Livingston, but was not effected and could not have 
been effected until Monroe reached Paris. We may accept Jeffer- 
son's letter of July 11, 1803, to Horatio Gates as an adequate con- 
clusion of controversy: 

The truth is, loth have a just j)ortion of merii ; and loere it necessanj or 
proper, it could he shewn that each has rendered peculiar service and of impor- 
tant value. 



WHO BOUGHT LOUISIANA? 17 

The definitive confirmation by Napoleon of the act of his minister 
followed on April 30, 1803, and this date was accepted as the date of 
the treaty. The delay was occasioned by rather ineffectual contro- 
versies as to the handling of the spoliation claims and did not affect 
the terms of the Louisiana Purchase. Even then the profound im- 
portance of the transaction was apparent to the participants. Jef- 
ferson had already declared that on the event of the mission of Liv- 
ingston and Monroe hung the future destinies of our country; and 
as Livingston rose after signing the documents he grasped Monroe's 
hand and cried, "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of 
our lives." 

Fifth Act. — The scene is Washington-. 

CONSUMMATION OF THE PURCHASE. 

" Great souls,'' said Napoleon, " care little for small morals." It 
was certainly upon this maxim that the First Consul acted when he 
sold Louisiana to Jefferson. He had not fulfilled his promise to 
Spain of an Italian Kingdom for the Duke of Parma, and Louisiana 
therefore was not his to sell. He had pledged himself solemnly to 
Charles IV never to alienate the Louisiana territory, and he bartered 
it away before he acquired actual possession. The French law for- 
bade alienation of any part of the national domain without the con- 
sent of the French Chambers, and yet the transfer to the United 
States was made without the formality of a reference. The final 
surrender to the American authorities carried no definition of bounda- 
ries, as if purposely to confuse the situation and sow seeds of future 
controversy; all that the American ministers could extract from 
Talleyrand was the enigmatic utterance, " I can give you no direc- 
tions. You have made a noble bargain for yourselves. I suppose 
you will make the most of it." A noble bargain, indeed, it was. 
More than 500.000.000 acres, costing less than 3 cents an acre ! Even 
Jefferson's penetrating intelligence was influenced by the colossal 
scale of the transaction. His constitutional scruples against the 
acquisition of new territory by the Federal Government had yielded 
to the pressure of the practical demands of the situation. Long 
before the signature of the treat}^ of Paris he had resolved to buy 
New Orleans, and bv appropriating $2,000,000 for this purpose Con- 
gress had implicitly authorized the transaction. Between the pur- 
chase of one square mile and a million square miles there was no 
essential difference. If one was repugnant to the Constitution, so 
was the other: if Congress was incompetent to do the one, it was 
equally incompetent to do the other. But while Jefferson had deter- 
mined to effect the smaller purchase, the acquisition of an area equal 
to 13 entire Virginias was more than he had contemplated. The 
immensity of his success startled and confused him. 

It is impossible to believe that to a mind so clear as that of the 
President the constitutional objections to the purchase of Louisiana 
seemed greater than to the purchase of New Orleans. Jefferson's 
difficulty lay not with his own conscience, but with the public con- 
science. It was essential to his politics that the mind of the country 
should keep pace with his own mind. A modest increment of the 
public domain such as was contemplated in the acquisition of New 

S. Doc. 46, 63-1 2 



18 WHO BOTTiHT LOT^IBIANA? 

Orleans alone would have commended itself to the pjood sense of his 
fellow countrymen, and Avould have been justified in their eyes by its 
pressing necessity and immediate utilit3^ The purchase of so huge 
an area as Louisiana seemed to require apolog;v and justification. 
Jefferson's proposed amendments to the Constitution had for their 
object not the satisfaction of his oAvn scruples, but the elimination of 
grounds for public apprehension. 

Fortunately, these measures were speedily i^igeonholed. Living- 
ston wrote that Napoleon's temper justified no delay. Gallatin had 
already pointed out that under the treaty-making power Congress 
had the right to acquire new territory. Nicholas could find nothing 
in the Constitution to limit the treaty-making power. The commoii 
sense of the people expressed itself in cordial aj^probation of the 
purchase. Only the weak minority of disappointed Federalists 
prophesied ruin and disaster. The brief debates which followed in 
Congress showed that both House and Senate were practically unani- 
mous in their agreement that the Government of the United States 
possessed the power to acquire new territory, either by conquest or 
by treaty. The treaty of Paris was confirmed by the Senate, the 
measures necessary for its execution were passed by the House, and 
Louisiana became part of the national domain of the United States. 

As we look back across the one hundred and ten years which divide 
us from the era of the Louisiana purchase, we are able to discern the 
fundamental import of this great transaction more clearly than the 
men who participated in it. We can see now that it marked the 
true beginning of the national phase of our history. It was not the 
Declaration of Independence which made a new nation on this con- 
tinent. It was not Yorktown which created the new nation, nor 
that treaty by which Great Britain acknowledged the freedom of her 
revolted colonies. It was not the Constitution of the LTnited States, 
instituted to bind the confederated colonies into a more perfect 
union. The act which transformed the confederation of 13 inde- 
pendent Commonwealths into an indissoluble union of indestructible 
States was the Louisiana purchase. The man who bought Louisiana 
was the man who created this great Republic of the West. 

The critics, who strive to lower to their irreducible minimum 
Monroe's claim to honor for his work in the Louisiana purchase, are 
no less adverse to frank recognition of Jefferson's services. Tliey 
represent his pacific attitude as thinly veiled cowardice and ascribe 
his success to plain good luck. Enough has been said already to 
permit a fairer evaluation of his labors. With the old philosopher 
peace was in very truth his passion, and in its paths he walked with 
courage as serene as ever guided warrior to the cannon's mouth. The 
ideals of Thomas Jefferson are the ideals of the America of our 
'Own day — freedom of thought and freedom of speech; liberty of 
action within the limits of the law ; trust in the people and respect 
for majority rule: political development based on ])ublic education; 
industrial development based on the national advancement of science; 
the abolition of slavery in every form, whether religious or social 
or political or commercial ; and above all and best of all, peace rather 
than war. The creed of Jefferson remains to-day the creed of 
America. 

Peace is indeed the most important of all things for its, except preserving 
an erect and independent attitude. 



WHO BOUGI-IT LOUISIANA? 19 

That man has little imagination and less heart who can in spirit 
watch the old President, as he sat for two anxious years in the White 
House, pondering the dangers and the destinies of the youno- Re- 
public he had done so much to create, and deny his areat share in this 
capital achievement of our national life, to conceive is easy to 
execute is difficult; but to risk fame and fortune, to rest the public 
honor and the national existence on the rule of right rather than on 
the rule of might, on the validity of conscience and the majesty of 
righteousness, and to abide the result with unshrinking heart— that 
IS the bravest thing and the best thing of which our poor humanitv 
has shown itself capable. 

St. Louis, April SO, 1913. 

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